Bob’s Memoir: 4,000 Years as a Free Demon
Part VIII
Bob Almighty
36
The Legend Begins
BEING CAUGHT in Guabancex’s hurricane was not the first time I’d been blown off course by an angry god. Remember Guabancex? After the Spaniards landed in the new world and I got blown in a huricane to Kukulcán? It’s in the first volume. Well, of course, I’d had run-ins with Poseidon aplenty, but…
Let me start at the beginning. I’ll tell more about my adventures in China some other time. After my time with the Khaans, I finally reached the east coast of China in the city of Huating, not far from the crossing to Nihon. Once a humble fishing village, now it was becoming a shipping capital with ships from as far away as England and France making it a port of call. It was a perfect place for me to get a ship.
“This is not a fishing boat,” the ship owner said. I nodded. It was certainly too small to be considered a shipping vessel, but it did look fast. I could imagine flying across the waves on this little ship. The wind in my hair. The fresh salt spray. And all that.
“Yes, I can see that. I like its features. Looks sleek and fast.”
“Well, if you have a good crew, it could win a race among the islands. Can you sail?”
I wanted to tell him I’d begun sailing where the first navy in human history was floated. I’d sailed the Mediterranean Sea, the Indian Ocean, and the Bay of Bengal. Of course, he wouldn’t believe that because I had the appearance of being a strong and willful young Asian, out to find my fortune. In truth, I was constantly on the lookout for kidnappers who would grab me to be a crewman on some freighter. I wouldn’t mind that so much as I could always take over the ship, but they were too large for my purposes. Some other time, perhaps.
I finally managed to convince him I was a good choice as a boat owner and paid him too much for the little boat. Before he could call anyone to grab me, I’d jumped onto the boat and shoved off. He ran along the docks and shortly, I saw three other boats of similar model cast off and set their sails to follow me.
Well, I knew a few tricks these fellows didn’t and set a fresh breeze in my sail, soon outdistancing them to such a degree that they fell back and turned around toward their berths. And I was off and sailing. I set myself generally southeastward and lay back to relax. I celebrated my first night on the open seas with a flask of wine from the infinity room and settled in to enjoy the journey, as I kept the wind in my sail and my hand on the tiller.
I put in at a few South Seas islands and restocked with wine. That’s not the subject of this little tale.
Perhaps I drank a bit too much wine. I woke up in the midst of a storm that had the marks of celestial interference about it. It turned out that I’d accidentally strayed into a raging battle between Tawhiri, the Maori god of storms and the sea, and his brother Tu of the angry face, the Maori god of war (and cunning and the destruction of humanity, etc.) When Tu came upon my little ship, he flung it behind him to get it out of his way as he grappled with his brother. I landed far inland on what I now know as the great island of Australia. My ship, broken in pieces around me, was good only to build a rough shelter to crawl into.
I did not stay in my shelter for long. Too many other beings crawled in with me. It seemed that everything in Australia was devoted to killing me. Snakes, crocodiles, jelly fish, spiders, bears, sharks, and even a giant bird called a cassowary. Anything not intent on killing you will still fight you, including the indigenous people. During the entire time I was in the land of the Australian aborigines, I kept the gateway to the infinity room closed.
Except once.
I looked at my star charts, which were woefully incomplete for this part of the world, and determined that I was far southeast of India. So, I headed northwest, making my way across a land that was alternatively a rich and fertile paradise and a barren desert. It was as I was making my way that I came across an aboriginal tribe that only tried to be dominant over me and not necessarily kill me. I acknowledged my innate inferiority and they then accepted me into their tribe—not quite as a long-lost brother, but more like a scarcely tolerated distant cousin who desperately wants to be part of the family, but keeps getting drunk, insulting the grandfather, and suggesting lewd acts to a married first cousin. Not that I did any of that literally. Exactly. Suffice it to say that my time with the Kalahalakalaka was informative.
By this time of my life, I had met hundreds of different races of people and at least dozens of different civilizations. I discovered that the hundreds of tribes and groups of Aboriginals in Australia were probably the oldest civilization on earth. I estimated they were thousands of years older than my own people on Crete, or any I encountered in Mesopotamia. And they were fantastic storytellers. Ask any question and a fatherly or motherly person of the tribe would sit you down and begin to tell you how it all began.
“When Awa’s father sent him to get water from the stream…” a story would begin, and before long, I would discover that two thousand cycles of the sun ago, the spine was broken off a rackarock fish and grew its own body. “And that is how the dreaded dingadocka was created.”
When I began to build my boat, I told the people about my voyage across the sea and how Tu had thrown me all the way across Australia. The people were delighted by the story. They wanted to know about where I had been and how I had sailed so far. They helped to build my boat in any way they could and often met until late at night to go over the details of my story and figure out how it fit into their own unique mythology.
I finished the boat and told my adopted tribe that in the morning, I would set sail northward again. When I rose with the sun, I discovered the entire village had been disassembled and packed on the backs of the tribe. They stood by my boat waiting for me. They were not there to see me off. They had packed everything in their village and had even captured some of the less dangerous animals to bring with them when they joined me on my boat. They had to know that the little boat I had fashioned would not hold the seventy or so of their cluster, yet they confidently waited for me to bring them aboard.
I explained that if they boarded my boat, they would find themselves in a different dreamland. They would never return to this dreamland and would live very long lives in my dream. They thought this was excellent. So, I consulted with my women and they designated an area far from where our cities were located. I opened a gateway and as the tribe set foot on my boat, it entered into the infinity room. I entered there long enough to explain to them where they were and they nodded and shooed me away to sail my dream.
I paused only long enough to kiss my wives and concubines and possessions, then sealed the satchel and set sail.
That was a long voyage. I intended to make for India, but was blown westward and began a slow crawl up the west coast of Africa toward the Mediterranean Sea. The voyage took a hundred years and I finally arrived in Italy near the middle of the fourteenth century, just as the black plague was taking hold.
Let me see. I’ve told you about Italy and Spain and Columbus. I told you about the Mayan gods recruiting me and my beautiful possession Maya. Well, Maya and I worked our way south until we found the abandoned town of Machu Picchu and there I hid the satchel and stepped in. We were there for many years and I only came out of the infinity room occasionally to see that the area was still undisturbed. The rest of the time, I spent exploring the infinity room which was truly vast by this time. I eventually made my way to the tribe of Aborigines I had brought from Australia. They had changed their name to Bobbobbob in honor of the god who brought them to this rich land where they flourished. I tried to think how many centuries they had lived in this corner of the infinity room and could not figure it out. Time is so undependable in the infinity room.
To listen to them tell the story to their children, they had lived there many thousands of years, dreamed into existence by The Bob. I was not just Bob anymore; I was The Bob. I was now a part of the creation myth and was deemed the supreme ruler of the gods of this land they now inhabited.
“Bob looked upon the empty land and was lonely. So, he spoke the word of creation and plants and animals grew in the land and there was plenty for everyone. But Bob was still lonely. In all the land he could find no storytellers to speak of him and his mighty works. And so, Bob wandered and found the dreamtime of Ungambikula. Ungambikula had also wandered the earth and found shapeless bundles by waterholes, and under trees, and in the nests of birds. These, Ungambikula carved and gave heads and arms and legs. When they were finished, Ungambikula went back to sleep and humans wandered its dreams. Bob quietly borrowed the Bobbobbob people from Ungambikula and brought them to this land in his dream where they live today.”
I was no longer a demon in the hearts of the Bobbobbob. I was the dreamer and sustainer of life.
I landed in southern California in the early eighteenth century. Of course, that involved having set sail from Lima early in the seventeenth century. That journey lasted nearly one hundred years and was very profitable.
Much has been written about piracy in the Caribbean. It was a major form of trade, engaged in by both privateers and buccaneers as well as general pirates. The difference? A pirate is a private warship that preys on other ships of any nation for its personal gain. Privateers are private warships that have a license from their nation to attack enemy ships and take their cargo. A Buccaneer is a private warship operating in its own interest without any official sanction, but generally does not prey on ships of its own nation.
For the ocean being as big as it is, it is amazing how many ships found and chased down others. There were nearly constant battles at sea and the spoils were taken by the victor. I’d had a fair amount of experience with pirates in the Mediterranean and had eventually operated with a kind of license from Caesar, so I guess I’d been a privateer.
Little has been said, though, about piracy on the Pacific coast of the Americas and on the burgeoning trade routes between the Americas and Asia. Wherever trade is found, piracy will also be found.
The day came when I decided Machu Picchu was no longer a safe place for us. That’s what I told myself. Perhaps I was just itching to move and travel again and made that my excuse. Regardless, I shouldered the satchel and came down from my mountain city. I found a different culture than any I had seen before. Eighty percent of the native population had been wiped out by conquistadores and disease. The Spanish administered the region and silver had become a major commodity.
An entire city in the Andes had been created overnight to mine silver and send it down to the seashore to be shipped back home to Europe. Of course, that wasn’t an easy thing to do. In order to facilitate efficiency and a currency of sorts, the silver was first refined and then minted into coins. Spanish pesos became the standard in the trade of silver. After the coins were minted, they were loaded on ships to work their way north to the isthmus of Panama, where they were trundled across the land to be picked up in the Caribbean for transport to Europe—or capture by pirates. It was a difficult journey because the northward journey was against the prevailing winds and the ships had to tack slowly northward. That made them an attractive target for pirates.
By whim of the sea and the wind, a merchant discovered a trade route from Peru to Asia and the Spanish colonies in the Philippines. This proved much more profitable because the ships could move loaded in both directions rather than sailing the faster trip south from Panama empty. Silver pesos transferred to the Philippines were traded for silk and spices which were then returned to Panama or Mexico for shipment to Europe.
Wherever a major trade route is established, piracy is soon established as well.
I intended to buy a ship of my own and see if I could finish my intended journey to India. But buying a ship in this era was a difficult matter. I would have to find a shipyard and build one myself if I wanted to sail the Pacific. Instead, I joined the ship Sunrise bound for Manila as a member of the crew. I thought I might have better luck getting a good ship in Asia.
We were three days out of Lima when we were set upon by a pirate ship. A shot was fired across our bow and the captain dropped sails immediately. It was obvious that the small cannon of our ship was no match for the well-armed pirate ship.
The pirates tied up to the Sunrise and boarded us. They drafted the sailors to transport the chests of silver from the Sunrise to the pirate ship. I carried a chest of silver across and then had a quick look around. It was a good ship and I was not above stealing from thieves. Once the cargo had all been transferred, the pirates—a congenial lot—helped themselves to a celebratory banquet on the Sunrise with the captain and crew. No one noticed I was not among the sailors who had returned from the pirate vessel. I silently cut the ropes and let our ships drift apart. Then I used a simple spell I had learned in my earliest days of sailing and unfurled all the sails on the ship at once. I shot away from the Sunrise, leaving both crews aboard it. I concealed the ship with a look-away spell so the Sunrise would be unable to follow and then had a look around my new home.
I’d seen the hold where we stored the silver and then inspected the cargo already aboard the ship. I wondered where the pirates planned to take all their bounty. This ship had cabins below deck as well, designed to sleep half a dozen men each. As I examined them, however, I discovered I was not entirely alone on this ship. The pirates had provided for their entertainment by capturing or buying women.
Each cabin had a woman chained to one of the beds. It was plain to see that the half dozen sailors who occupied that cabin shared the woman among them. They were all naked, showed signs of beatings and starvation, and cowered in a corner when I looked into the cabin.
I quickly went into the captain’s cabin, which I would use as my own, and opened the gateway. I called out women from my harem to assist the captives. I was sure any approach I made would simply terrorize them more. My wives and possessions led a cadre of my other concubines onto the ship to release and care for the traumatized young women. They led them into the infinity room.
I didn’t need help sailing the pirate ship, though I had to stay awake and at the helm. I didn’t feel comfortable dropping the sails and sitting in the current while I slept or entertained myself in the infinity room. It wouldn’t do to steal a ship and rescue its prisoners, only to be captured by another pirate ship. To keep me from getting lonely, one or ten of my women would come out of the infinity room each night to join me beneath the Pacific stars.
“Can you heal their minds, Bob?” Esmeralda asked when she joined me on deck. My fourth wife was loving and kind and just as horny as the first day I met her. But she was troubled by our rescued women. “They are so damaged, most cannot even talk, no matter what language we use to communicate. They have not recognized they are free and stay huddled in a corner of the room we prepared for them. They cling to each other as the only reality they know.”
“I wish I had Issa’s ability to heal. It is something I have never learned. And I don’t know if healing a mind is even the same as healing a body,” I answered. I was troubled by the plight of the women as well and had considered returning to the Sunrise to kill the pirates who had abused them so badly. Unfortunately, or perhaps for my own good, the wind and current ran westward and I would stand little chance of finding them once I hit the eastward currents.
“Could you take control of them as you did Princess Agora?” she asked. Of course, Esmeralda had not been with me yet when I possessed my third woman. She knew it had been done to save her sanity.
“I took possession of Agora because she could not cope with the world I brought her into. I was responsible for her condition and did the only thing I could think of to help her. I swear that I will never again possess a person without her will and consent. The people in our world will have free will,” I said adamantly.
“But surely there is a part of what you do that could simply be used to ease their minds, Bob.” She paused and touched my cheek. She was not going to let this rest. “I know I am pestering you to do something you do not want to do. I… All of us are moved with compassion for these mistreated women. I believe they thought they would simply be drowned at sea when the pirates had finished with them.”
“Esmeralda, I have compassion as well. Like all the other women in my household, I created a kind of bond with them when I brought them to our home. I see them. I feel them. I hurt with them. I will think on what can be done. Please tell the librarians to search the books for a means of healing their minds.”
Esmeralda kissed me passionately. The matter was apparently not so urgent that she felt she needed to rush back to the infinity room without making love again. I loved the Italian girl I had brought with me from Spain—the one whose great grandmother had trapped me in my satchel for seventy years.
I had a real problem dealing with the captive women. I had to stay out on the deck or else equip a crew to sail through the night. We tried bringing them out onto the deck so I could talk to them, but if anything, that set them back even further. They panicked, thinking they were being brought back to the sailors’ cabins. One broke free and flung herself overboard.
I did not hesitate to dive into the water after her and bring her back to the ship. I needed every ounce of my strength and I shed my human form to make full use of my demon strength as I swam after her. It took me a while to reach her as the boat was moving away quite rapidly. When I caught her, she was half-drowned and I breathed life back into her lungs with my own breath while I treaded water. When she began breathing on her own, she gasped as she saw me in the moonlight.
“Rest in my arms, child. Bob has you now and I won’t let you die.”
By that time, the ship, without a captain and with my infinity room on board, was far ahead of me. It took a watch of the night for me to catch up to it, carrying a crying woman in one arm.
My women were quick thinkers and immediately called some of the sailors out of the infinity room to furl the sails and watch with ropes ready to throw to me. Then they took all the remaining women back to their room. They were watching for me as I reached the ship and threw me lines. I hauled the shivering and nearly comatose girl up onto the deck and delivered her into the hands of my concubines.
As long as I had men on deck with me, I decided to sit with them and have a drink of wine as I told them about how the new ship sailed. I restored my body to human form, which put them much more at ease. The ship was larger than any we had used in the past. Even under the influence of the wine, the men grasped the intricacies quickly. It was more difficult to explain the operation of the cannons. None of these men were of an age in which the use of gunpowder was a thing. I decided perhaps I should bring out some of the men who joined me from the Chinese or Mongols to help with the defensive systems.
For the time being, I hoped I did not need to use them.
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